Saturday, August 17, 2019

On
August 3, 2019, when a lone gunman entered a Walmart in El Paso, Texas and
began shooting with an assault weapon, eventually killing 22 and wounding
scores of others, in his own words, ‘to stop the Mexican invasion of Texas,’ it
sent shock waves around the world. Some of my friends, traumatized by this
horrendous event, reached out to me, a native Texan, wanting to know if this
was the event that would finally propel politicians in the Lone Star State to
change their policies on ownership and possession of guns. I thought about it
for a long time, and finally, I’m here to tell you, ‘it ain’t gonna happen in
our lifetimes.

Despite the fact that 89 percent of the
voters in Texas support background checks on all gun purchases (including 91
percent of the state’s Republican voters), the GOP-controlled state
legislature, which represents only 7 to 8 percent of Texas voters, remains
firmly opposed to restrictive background checks, or any other common sense
controls over ownership of firearms.

You’re probably reading that statement
with ‘shock and awe,’ and wondering how such a convoluted situation exists.
Well, for starters, the Texas Republican party controls who in its ranks gets
on state ballots, and just as it was before the defection of Yellow-Dog
Democrats to the Republican party in protest against the Democratic party’s ‘liberal’
views on civil rights, Republican primary elections have taken the place of
Democratic primaries as the determinant of the direction of Texas politics. As
they used to say in Shelby County, where I grew up, when the Democratic primary
is held, the election is already decided, and while my county remains in the
hands of Democrats, the state is firmly under Republican control. And, not just
any Republicans, but those who stand to the right of Atilla the Hun in their
beliefs.

That, however, is just the macro-view from
a political perspective. At work in Texas is more than a century of social and
cultural conditioning that works against a more enlightened view of guns and
the havoc they can wreak upon society.

It’s no exaggeration to say that Texans
love guns. They revere guns along with football, pickup trucks, and barbecue,
with, I am convinced, guns and football vying for the top spot. The Second
Amendment is probably better read in Texas than the Bible, and it’s certainly
more closely adhered to.

I grew up around guns. My uncle, Buddy, my
mother’s older brother, wore a .45 caliber revolver until the day he died. I
was away in the army at the time, but I’m pretty sure that when he died ‘Old
Bess’ was on the nightstand beside his bead. My grandmother, a feisty,
pint-sized woman born in the late 1890s, was a crack shot with rifle and
pistol, and is the one who taught me to shoot with the .22 single shot rifle I
was given on my sixth birthday.

Growing up, hearing of a shooting was such
a common-place occurrence, it was never even discussed unless you knew the
shooter or his victim—which, even in my small county of less than 12,000 inhabitants,
was quite likely. As a four-year old, I still remember sitting on my tricycle
in our front yard, on a hill overlooking a honkytonk, and seeing a man settle
an argument over a domino game by going home, getting his .22 rifle—the town
was only about a mile square, so no one lived all that far from anyone else—and
coming back to get his revenge. Until I left home just before my seventeenth birthday
and joined the army, I seem to remember not a month going by that I didn’t hear
of another shooting somewhere within fifty miles of my tiny little hometown.

I spent twenty years in the army, going
home to visit or attend a funeral about every five years, and then joined the
U.S. Foreign Service, which meant the time between visits was even longer. I
only lived in Texas as an adult for nine months when the State Department
assigned me as diplomat-in-residence at the University of Houston’s main
campus. Now, I chose that because I was curious to see how Texas had changed, having
gone from the segregated place I grew up in—in my home town even the parking
places downtown were designated by race—to what I assumed would be a more
enlightened, friendly place to live. I even toyed briefly with the idea of buying
some lakefront property and living there when I eventually retired from
government service.

A few incidents in Houston, which was
known as the ‘murder capital of the world,’ when I was a young boy, scotched
that plan pretty dang fast.

The first was an incident in a restaurant
not far from the campus where I had my office in the Political Science
Department. Four men dining together in the restaurant got into an argument.
One pulled an automatic and shot one of the others. Even though the intended
victim was sitting across the table from him, he missed and the bullet struck
and killed a young mother several tables away. The next was when a resident of
one of Houston’s wards came home late one night and discovered a would-be burglar
concealed in a large planter on his front porch. He drew the pistol he was
wearing and shot the intruder dead. The police reaction to this? A police
spokesman on TV that night said, “It’s a good thing Mr. X had his gun with him.”
You see, in Texas, you’re allowed to shoot trespassers, because protection of
private property is a sacred right of Texans. There was an incident I read of
where a man shot and killed a lady of the evening he’d met through a ‘dating’
service, because she took his money but refused to provide the purchased ‘service.’
He was not charged on the grounds that a person is allowed to use deadly force
to retrieve ‘stolen’ property.

Do you get where I’m coming from?

Let me put in even better perspective.
Texas is no stranger to mass shootings, or high-profile murders. The most
notable is John F. Kennedy’s 1963 assassination in Dallas as his motorcade
traversed the city. A lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, who was later killed in
full view of TV cameras by Jack Ruby, should have been the impetus to take a
long, hard look at the gun laws, but it wasn’t. Nor was the August 1, 1966
shooting at the University of Texas in Austin that left 14 dead, or the October
26, 1991 shooting at a restaurant in Killeen that killed 23.

The list of mass shootings in Texas,
defined as incidents in which four or more people are killed or injured, is
long, and some people want something done. But nothing will be done because the
legislature is controlled by fringe right-wing nuts who resist change with
every fiber of their being.

You’d think that in a state born out of
revolution the people would rise up and throw the bums out. The political lash
up makes that difficult, and the social and cultural attitudes of Texans, even
those shocked by the violence and wanting some kind of rational control, also
works against real change.

Like I said at the beginning, Texans love
them some guns. Texas has more gun owners than any other U.S. state, with approximately
51 million registered firearms of all kinds. To put that into perspective, that’s
more guns than are owned by the entire population of the European Union. The
state of Texas has 20 percent of the legally registered guns in the United
States, or approximately two for every man, woman and child in the state.
Everyone in Texas doesn’t own a gun, but the gun owners control the politics, and
that makes all the difference.

So, if you’re waiting for Texas to be the
epicenter of movement toward universal background checks, red flag laws with
some teeth, or stricter rules about who can own a gun—right now, only felons
are barred from registering a firearm, and just about anything that shoots a
projectile, except a tank or an F-15, is eligible for registration, don’t hold
your breath.

Texas, my friends, is not just a state, it’s
a state of mind. When I was in high school, while students in the rest of the
U.S. were learning American history, I was required to do a course in the
history of Texas that focused a lot on the fact that it was once an independent
republic. We took U.S. history as well, but I seem to remember that more hours
were devoted to state history.

How bad is it, really? Texas has long allowed
carry, and now allows guns on college campuses. The state attorney general sued
one of the counties over a county regulation prohibiting guns in courthouses. Think
about those two situations for a minute. Not only is there the potential for
teachers to be armed, but students as well—at least at the college level. Makes
a professor think before assigning grades, or criticizing a student in class.
And, heaven help us if someone in a courtroom disagrees with a verdict. It hasn’t
happened yet, but I predict that it’s just a matter of time.

I no longer call Texas home, having
settled in Maryland over thirty years ago. But I’m still a Texan at heart—for the
most part. I was once a member of the NRA, until they became a political
lobbying group rather than a gun safety and hunting organization, and two tours
in Vietnam, where I saw up close and personal what assault rifles can do to the
human body, caused me to change my views on gun ownership. The Second
Amendment, as interpreted by the gun-nut fringe, is no longer my Bible. I not
only support restrictions on the acquisition of firearms, but an outright ban on
certain weapons, especially rapid fire and high-capacity weapons that are meant
for only one thing—killing. That alone is enough, I fear, to make me no longer
welcome in my home state.

Sunday, July 7, 2019

After hijacking the 4th of July, what other holidays could our dictator-in-waiting be planning to distort to his blatant political aims? Given his ignorance of history (airports during the Revolutionary War, really?) he'll probably have the Pilgrims landing near Big Sur.

Sunday, February 3, 2019

Of
the many unusual and troubling things that Donald J. Trump has done since
becoming president, one that particularly troubles me is his using interactions
with U.S. military forces and individuals like campaign events Ranging from
signing MAGA caps during his Christmas visit to troops in Iraq to using a
recent Pentagon visit to lambast his political opponents, Trump’s actions are
blatantly partisan and definitely inappropriate.

Since George Washington’s speech to army
officers meeting in Newburgh, New York in March 1783 to discuss possibly
defying the U.S. Congress over its failure to provide back pay due them, in
which he opened with the statement, ‘Gentlemen. By an anonymous summons, an
attempt has been made to convene you together, how inconsistent with the rules
of propriety! How unmilitary~! And how subversive of all order and discipline .
. .’ In a long speech, Washington dissuaded the disgruntled officers from
carrying out what would have been, in effect, a military coup, and since that
time, keeping the military shielded from partisan politics has been a
fundamental part of the military profession.

In addition to time-honored tradition,
there are also legal and regulatory controls and restrictions regarding the
military and political activity. Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution
states, ‘The President shall be the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of
the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into
the actual service of the United States. This clearly establishes civilian
control of the military, and makes clear that the military must obey the
legitimate orders of the civilian authority. Article 88 of the Uniform Code of
Military Justice (UCMJ) states, ‘Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous
words against the President, Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of
Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of
Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory,
Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished
as a court martial may direct.

It is abundantly clear from all this that
through law and practice, it has never been intended that the military forces
of the United States should be used for political purposes. For a president,
therefore, to so blatantly introduce the partisan into his interactions with
our active duty military forces is troubling on many fronts. For one, it is, in
my view as a veteran of 20 years of military service, a violation of one of our
most sacred positions. It puts military personnel in an uncomfortable and
potentially untenable position. They cannot, by regulation and tradition, rebel
against the commander in chief—the best that they can do, as was demonstrated
in the recent Pentagon appearance, is to stand silently and respectfully. I
fear, though, that there is an even greater danger. As traditional behavioral
norms are slowly cast aside, and the unthinkable becomes more publicly acceptable,
this constant political manipulation of the military has the potential to shift
the military closer to the political sphere. In a country where the military’s
role is to defend the country, not to serve a particular political party or
individual, this is dangerous. To those who say it could never happen, I merely
point to the events of 1783 to show that, without the intervention of George
Washington, it could have happened
early in our history.

It is incumbent that those who have the
president’s ear; the secretary of defense, GOP members of congress, such as
Senator Lindsey Graham (who is himself a military veteran) to point out to him
the potential danger of his actions, and persuade him to cease and desist.

Words have consequences, and actions cause
reactions. We have spent over 200 years building a democratic system that is
(was?) the envy of the world. It behooves us to do everything possible to
ensure that that work is not undone during one four-year period.

Friday, January 18, 2019

Amid all the sturm und drang of the standoff between President Trump and
Democratic congressional leadership over his stubborn demand for $5.7 billion
to build the border wall he promised his base during the 2016 campaign, there
is thankfully a bit of attention being paid to the anguish and financial
hardship this childish situation places on the more than 400,000 federal
workers either furloughed or being forced to work without pay. Neither side, however,
seems to be seriously aware of or concerned about the law of unintended
consequences beyond this admittedly terrible consequence of what is essentially
a political stunt; the other consequences flowing out of this situation that
either were unforeseen, or just ignored.

Occasionally
mentioned in the news are the economic impacts of the shutdown; national parks
being damaged, services not being delivered, companies suffering economic
losses, air travel negatively impacted, and the list goes on, and is likely to
get longer. While some would have us believe that only those inside the Beltway
know or care about, those 800,000 federal workers are scattered all over the
country. It’s not just long screening wait times at Dulles and National that
are a problem, airports from Newark to San Diego suffer as low-income TSA
screeners call out sick, or contemplate a career change.

Speaking
not as someone who spent 20 years in the military and 30 in the Foreign
Service, who has personal experience of the previously longest shutdown in
history (21 days during the Clinton Administration), but as a private citizen
who cares deeply about this country, I would submit that both sides in this
senseless debate need to sit down, take a deep breath, and reassess their negotiating
strategies and positions. As an outsider with no real political axe to grind, I
would offer some suggestions for all sides to consider.

President
Trump

Stop flogging what was essentially a
campaign mnemonic device to help remind you to discuss immigration in your
stump speeches that generated a chant (Build the Wall) that caught on with the
crowd, as the most important policy of your administration. Be specific in what
you’re seeking, and for Pete’s sake, make it more than just a wall. Sure, physical
barriers can be helpful, but a wall, standing all alone in a field, that is not
patrolled, monitored, or maintained (all of which cost money), it’s just an
architectural eye sore. For those who use prison walls as an example of walls
that work, I point out that they work because of guards, guns, searchlights,
and the fact that prisoners are locked in cells for a good part of the day. If
your goal is truly to achieve border security, then submit a detailed plan. How
many miles or yards of wall, where will it or they be built, what supporting
infrastructure (roads, sensors, etc.) will be included, what are the personnel
monitoring requirements, and what are the long-term maintenance costs? What are
the environmental impacts and costs of seized land? What is the potential
impact on agriculture and commerce?

Stop using bogus statistics to support the
wall. For example, most drugs come through legal ports of entry, or come in by
boat. A wall won’t stop or even slow the flow of drugs.

Stop falsely using the scare of terrorism,
with the claim that 4,000 terrorists have been nabbed at the southern border.
Records indicate six people who appeared on the terrorist watch list were
detained, but nothing is known of the resolution of their cases. If you’re
going to insist on using terrorism as an excuse, you’d better add the northern
border to your wall-building sites because that’s the only land border over
which an actual terrorist has passed.

Accept that most of the American people
(56%) do not support your wall, and the majority government employees do not
support shutting down the government because of a policy dispute.

Stop trying to shift the blame to others.
Sure, it takes two or more to make an argument, but you publicly stated before
the shutdown that you’d be ‘proud to shut down the government for border
security.’ You might also take a closer look at how your shutdown is affecting
border security. Among the 800,000 federal workers on furlough or working for
free are the border patrol officers charged with securing the border.

Democrats

I fully empathize with the desire not to
punish bad behavior, but in negotiations, if both sides aren’t willing to
compromise a little, it’s not really a negotiation, but a two-way extortion
attempt.

If the president shows a willingness to be
reasonable, honest, and detailed in his border security proposals, then you
should be willing to acknowledge that, while building a wall along the entire
border is infeasible, impractical, and impossible, some physical barriers, with
proper monitoring, are useful. Be prepared to work with him to find a
reasonable middle ground that actually addresses border security.

A very short recommendation, but given the
current dynamics, it should be enough to allow the Republican leadership to
come out of hiding and engage in a bipartisan effort to end this charade.

Thursday, December 27, 2018

A humorous little holiday-themed short story that I hope readers will enjoy.

1.

Daxon Grump was angry. This was nothing
new. He was always angry about something. But, on this occasion, he was angrier
than he’d been in a long time. He didn’t like not getting his way, and the
dunderheads—his word for them—in his parliament had committed the cardinal sin;
they’d refused to give him something he’d wanted from the day he put on the
crown of Washuptown.

Formerly
the owner and star performer in the Grump Circus of the Stars, Hermyonus Grump
has ascended the throne of Washuptown by happenstance and accident, but after a
few days there had accepted it as his due. In other words, he’d become royal,
regal, and kingly in all the ways those words are thought of as negative,
alienating his parliament, and causing him to doubt the efficacy of a
parliamentary monarchy, where he had to share power with a bunch of former
tradesmen or royals who hadn’t been high enough in the bloodline to lay claim
to the throne.

Because
of this unfortunate—fortunate for him—the parliament had thrown the succession
open to any citizen who could convince the people he was fit to lead. He, with
his many years of experience parting suckers from their coin to see the acts in
his circus, had campaigned throughout the kingdom of Washuptown, promising the
world, and enthralling the crowds of peasants and merchants who had long
labored under the often heavy and uncaring hands of the royals. In the end, he
had prevailed. His victory against the other contenders had been narrow, but it
was just enough to push him to the head of the list. That some of the votes for
him had been purchased with the horde of gold he’d amassed over the years was
something he gave little thought to, just hoping that it would never be known.

Two
days after the coronation, he’d met with Michel Orwell, speaker of parliament,
and one of the people who had seen the direction in which the wind of change
was blowing and supported him early, and each time he recalled that meeting,
his blood boiled, his nostrils flared, and he felt like throwing things.

“But,
our majesty,” Orwell had said after he’d presented him with what he felt was a
brilliant idea. “I think your desire to protect the kingdom from outsiders is
admirable, but the method you propose to accomplish it is not within the
ability of the royal treasury to achieve.”

“What?”
He reacted in shock and anger, the same way he’d always done whenever one of
his circus minions had had the temerity to disagree with one of his ideas. “How
much could it cost to build a simple wall around the kingdom? All the gold the
royal family amassed during King Odan’s reign has to be sufficient to do that.”

“Hardly,
your majesty. We have . . . expenses and obligations that must be met. A wall
would deplete the treasury to an extent that we would not be able to do so.
Worse, Yuletime is fast approaching, and we must be able to pay the holiday
bonuses. It is expected.”

Grump
was furious. He was livid. Obligations my foot, he thought. We’re paying
hundreds of scribes and counselors to sit around creating mountains of paper
that never go anywhere, and that less than half the kingdom could read, and the
other half couldn’t understand. And, there were the princely salaries each of
the members of the parliament received each month.

This
was unacceptable. He would find a
way.

“Very
well, Speaker Orwell,” he said in a tight voice. “You are dismissed. I will
consider this, and when I’ve made a decision, I will get back to you.”

As
the obese speaker, his loose jowls flapping bowed and backed out, Grump was
having the beginnings of another brilliant idea.

2.

He thought about it for a full two days.
Well, actually, he didn’t do much thinking, for he’d already made up his mind
before he’d even dismissed that toady Orwell. Mostly, he sat around two days
stewing and doodling on a loose sheet of foolscap. He’d waited for the dramatic
effect. His years in the circus had taught him the importance of timing and
pacing.

On
the third day he was ready.

He
had a page summon Orwell.

The
fat fool came rushing in twenty minutes later, sweating like a peasant fresh in
from the fields. He stopped in front of Grump and bowed deeply.

“You
wished to see me, your majesty?”

“I
do,” Grump said. “Did you get a chance to read the proposal I sent to your
office yesterday?”

Orwell’s
head bobbed up and down.

“I
did, your majesty, and may I say it is an elegant design, elegant, while at the
same time appearing quite sturdy.”

Grump
didn’t smile, because, despite the toadying words, he sensed a ‘but’ in there
somewhere. That ‘but’ wasn’t long in coming.

“But
there is, your majesty, a problem, and I’m unable to get my fellow parliamentarians
to agree to supporting it.”

“They
refuse to support it,” Grump
sputtered. “Do they not know that this is my signature project, that it will be
my legacy?”

“Uh,
they know all this, but the, ah, problem, you see, is that there is not enough
in the treasury to pay for it.”

Grump
smiled now, for he’d anticipated that objection.

“I
have a plan for dealing with that little problem,” he said. “All we have to do
is not pay all the useless hangers-on, like scribes and counselors for, oh, say
six months, and there will be more than enough in the treasury to build my
wall.”

Orwell,
though, was an experienced bureaucrat and a savvy politician. He was not to be
outdone.

“That
will pay for the materials, sire, but what of the laborers who must build it?
That will not be a small expense.”

Again,
Grump smiled, which caused Orwell to shudder.

“Ah,
the laborers,” Grump said. “I suppose we will
have to pay for supervisors. I was thinking I could use the salary paid to
you almost-useless parliamentarians for that. As for the common labor, I
believe if I ask, enough citizens of Washuptown will volunteer their labor.
After all, Washuptonians love me, do they not?”

Orwell
knew that was a dangerous question to answer incorrectly, for he’d learned very
early that Grump was a man who valued what others thought of him above all but
increasing his wealth—as long as they thought well of him. On the other hand,
he knew that the citizens looked forward to Yuletime, that week in the spring
of each year when they paid homage to the Yule tree, the source of heat,
building materials, perfume, tools, and many other necessary items in their
daily lives. It was a time they exchanged gifts, planted new Yule trees, and
held long parties at which a potent liquor made from the sap of the tree was
consumed. What they would definitely not want
to do would be spending many, many months constructing a wall around the
kingdom which would complicate trade with neighboring kingdoms, and interfere
with Yuletime festivities.

“Of
course, the people love you, your majesty,” Orwell said. “But you must remember
that Yuletime approaches, and the people might not like anything to interfere
with observance of this sacred holiday. Oh, and that reminds me, there is one
other expense that the treasury must provide for; each year the palace throws a
huge Yuletime feast for the populace. It’s somewhat expensive, but well worth
it in the goodwill it generates.

“Oh,
did I now tell you, Orwell,” Grump said. “In order to ensure the health of the
treasury, so that my wall can be adequately funded, I’ve decided to cancel
Yuletime this year.”

Orwell’s
eyes went wide. When Grump held up a royal edict written in his own crabby
handwriting, that said, ‘Yooltime is cansuled until I get MY wall.Grump Res,’ followed by the royal seal of
Washuptown, his blood ran cold.

This
would not go over or down well with the citizens. Never in the history of the
kingdom had the holiday been tampered with. He did not know how the people
would react.

“Don’t
you think that’s bit extreme, sire?”

“Of
course not. My people love me. You’ll see. I’m having the population summoned
this very afternoon in the forecourt of the palace, where I will announce my
great plans. You and your parliamentarian colleagues will be there.”

Orwell
shuddered and swallowed hard. He had no choice. He would have to be there, but
he had a sinking feeling that bad things were about to happen.

Worse,
he thought, the simpleton misspelled ‘Yuletime’ and ‘cancel.’ The people will
forgive him the second, as most of them probably can’t spell it either, but as
for the first . . . well, that was sacrilege. Oh yes, he thought, bad things
are about to happen.

3

.

Just before the midday meal hour—not, in
Orwell’s opinion a good time to assemble people to listen to a speech, even if
the speech was for good news, which this one was not to be—most of Washuptown’s
population had assembled in the castle’s forecourt. There were puzzled looks on
many faces as people wondered why their new king wanted to speak with them.
Some smiled, for they figured, if it was important enough for the king to call
the whole kingdom together for it, it would be a great thing to participate in.
Orwell and his fellow parliamentarians, though, were most definitely not happy
to be there, for they knew that when the king announced his grand plan, there
was no telling how the people might react—Orwell had shared Grump’s plan with
the others, and it’s safe to say that each and every one of them was quaking in
his boots.

After
making the people wait for half an hour—Grump had read somewhere that this was
a sign of royalty, and showed his importance—Grump appeared on the balcony,
beaming down at the crowd and waving his hands. Somewhat nearsighted, he didn’t
notice the frowns on some of the faces in the crowd. Not everyone was happy at
being made to stand so long in the hot sun, and be force to miss the midday
meal.

Grump
waited until the murmuring, which he interpreted as murmuring of affection for
his royal self, to die down, and then he held up his proclamation, and began
explaining why he was doing it.

As
those in the front rows read the proclamation, stopping on Yooltime, and being
shocked and passing this bit of heresy on to those behind them, the murmuring
took up again.

Thus,
only the guards on the balcony heard the part about government workers not
getting paid for six months. The sergeant of the guard sent one of the guards
to carry that message through the
castle.

Orwell’s
colleagues gasped when they realized that parliamentarians’ salaries were
included in the things Grump was not going to pay.

The
crowd didn’t hear Grump’s call for free volunteer labor to build his wall. They
were so steamed that the king butchered the name of their most sacred holiday,
they’d stopped listening to his speech, and were talking among themselves.

It
was only the rising volume of his voice that caught their attention.

“Citizens
of Washuptown, what say you to my proposal?”

4.

There was a moment of stunned silence.

Then,
from the middle of the crowd, someone shouted, “Off with his head!”

Grump
could not believe at first what he was hearing. This couldn’t be happening. The
people loved him, they would not be turning on him like this. Something was
amiss. He turned and looked at Orwell.

“What
are they saying, Orwell? Why are they not happy?”

The
pudgy parliamentarian bowed, keeping his eyes averted from the confused king.

“They
are angry, your majesty. I warned you that it would be a mistake to muck with
Yuletime.”

“But
they should be happy that I’m bringing security and safety to the kingdom. When
I made speeches about it before I won the crown, they cheered wildly. Why have
they changed?”

“Well, your majesty, it’s like this. They
did not feel insecure until you started making speeches about it. They still do
not really insecure. Washuptonians
simply like good speeches, and you are adept at giving them what they like.
Now, though, you have given them something they do not like, or rather, you are
threatening to take something they like away from them. I fear that you have
pushed them to anger, and I cannot say what they might do.”

“They’re
threatening to boil me alive. They can’t do that to their king. They should
love me.”

“Sire,
they loved you when you were making speeches. If you had left it at that, they
might’ve continued to love you. Now you are proposing to do things they do not
like or want to do. If I might be so bold as to venture an opinion, I think
they just might boil you alive.”

Grump’s
ruddy complexion turned gray.

“No,
that cannot be allowed.” He turned to the captain of the guard. “Captain, have
your men drive these people away from here. Any who resist, throw them into the
dungeons.”

The
guard captain didn’t move.

“Captain,
did you hear me?”

“Aye,
your majesty. I heard you. But you just announced that royal employees are not
being paid. We guards are royal employees. If we are not being paid, we cannot
work. It’s in our contracts. We are not allowed to work for free.”

Grump
looked confused. He turned to Orwell.

“Is
that true?”

“Yes,
your majesty. Employees such as guards have an iron-clad contract. No pay, no
work.”

“Uh,
I’m afraid they are not allowed to accept pay other than from the royal
treasury, your majesty,” Orwell said. “That is to ensure their loyalty.”

Grump
had a sudden revelation. His own petard, his explosive idea that would bind
everyone in the kingdom to him and have them bend to his will forever, was now
affixed firmly to his nether regions. He had painted himself into a corner on a
precipice, with no handholds, and was about to be pushed into the abyss. Being
king was suddenly not such a glorious prospect. He wished he’d stayed in his
circus.

“W-what
am I to do, Orwell. I do not wish to be boiled, dead or alive.”

“Well,
your majesty, there is one thing that you might consider. I cannot guarantee
that it will work, but it just might placate them, and they just might spare you.”

To
a man in a hole, a rope is preferred, but if a string is all that is dropped
down, he will grasp it.

“Anything,
Orwell, I’m willing to do anything to stay alive.”

“If
you publicly relinquish the crown, and put the power in the hands of the
parliament, temporarily, mind you, until we can select another to be king. I am
confident that the people will be merciful.”

Grump
thought about it for all of ten seconds. He’d wanted to be king, but most of
all he just wanted to continue to be.
Running a circus wasn’t all that bad. At least, he had total control over the
clowns, acrobats, and other performers.

“Very
well then, I resign effective immediately.”

“Repeat
so the people hear, your majesty.”

Grump
walked to the railing and leaned forward. “I, King Grump, do hereby relinquish
the throne. I am no longer your king. Yuletime is still on.”

The
murmuring stopped. People stared up at him.

“You
really gonna quit?” some asked.

“Yes,
I quit.”

Orwell
stepped forward.

“The
king has abdicated. The parliament is now in control, and Yuletime is not
cancelled. Oh, and there will be no wall built, and all royal employees are to
report to work immediately. Yuletime bonuses will be paid on the morrow.” He turned to the captain of the guard.
“Captain, please escort Daxon Grump to the gate and see that he leaves the
royal premises.” He then turned back to Grump and not so gently removed the
crown from his head.

With
a broad smile on face, the captain ordered two guards to seize the commoner.
The two burly young men grabbed Grump by his arms and unceremoniously lifted
him so that his toes dragged across the cobblestones. At the gate, they heaved
him through the opening like a sack of waste and slammed the gate shut.

He
picked himself up, dusted himself off, looked around to see if anyone had seen
what had happened. Elated to see that his humiliation was unwitnessed by any
but the perpetrators, he walked away, whistling.

5.

That should have been the end of it for
Daxon Grump. Unfortunately, his stars were not so aligned. Some of the people
he’d paid to vote for him were heard complaining in a local inn that the coins
he’d used to pay them were iron, painted to look like gold sovereigns, and when
they’d tried using them to buy things, they’d had them flung back in their
faces and themselves flung from the establishments.

When
word of this reached Orwell at the parliament, he and his colleagues conferred
and came to the decision that such malfeasance could not go unpunished. An
example had to be made so that in the upcoming elections the candidates would
be motivated to campaign honestly.

A
guard was dispatched to Grump’s circus, and he was again unceremoniously hosted
between two guards, and thrown into an iron-barred cage and transported to the
castle dungeon. The parliament held a speedy trial at which those who had
received his counterfeit coins confessed that they’d sold their votes to one
Daxon Grump. Each of them received a token two lashes on the back and warned
never to commit such a grave offense again. Grump, found guilty of fraud and
counterfeiting, was spared the lash. He was sentenced to ten years in the
dungeon, allowed to leave his cell once a day only to clean the castle stables
and pig sty.

No
one would speak to him, and it was forbidden to utter his name. Only the pigs,
grunting when he fed them scraps from the castle kitchen, not unlike the swill
he received each morning and evening in his cell, seemed to call his name,
uttering, ‘grump, grump’ continuously as the plunged their snouts into the
gray, mushy mess he fed them.

Grump
had always dreamed of a captive audience shouting his name over and over, and
adoring him. He finally had realized his dream, and they were his to rule over
for ten years.

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

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Saturday, October 13, 2018

On October 2, 2018, Jamal Khasoggi, a former Saudi
Arabian senior journalist who was critical of the Saudi regime, entered the
Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey to obtain paperwork for his planned
marriage to his Turkish fiancée. There is video evidence of his entry into the
facility, but no evidence showing that he ever came out again. Khasoggi,
fearing arrest for his criticism of the Saudi government, had gone into
self-imposed exile, had become a legal permanent resident of the United States,
and wrote opinion pieces for the Washington
Post and other media outlets.

Turkish officials claim that they have audio and video
evidence that shows Khasoggi was beaten, tortured, killed, and then dismembered
by a team of Saudi intelligence officials who had entered Istanbul and departed
by private plane the same day. The Turks say that one of the 15 agents was a
forensics expert. The Saudis, not surprisingly, deny this happened, and call the
Turkish claim a lie. Outside the locked rooms of the various intelligence
agencies little is actually known, other than the fact that Khasoggi has not
been heard from since October 2.

While I, like most outside the intelligence community,
don’t know what actually happened
inside the Saudi consulate on October 2, what I do know has left me shocked, appalled, and disgusted. Shocked, but
hardly surprised, that a government would even contemplate such a barbarous
act. Appalled that so little concrete has been done beyond the usual public statements
of ‘shock, dismay, and disapproval.’ And, disgusted at my own government’s
reactions to his incident.

President, and deal-maker-in-chief, Donald Trump, when
this first hit the airwaves, was noncommittal, and ended his statement by
saying that while this, if true, was terrible, he did not want to cancel a $110
billion arms sale to the Saudis. Subsequently, Trump expressed his ‘anger’ at
the whole incident, promised that he would have ‘strong words’ for the Saudi
leadership, but still expressed his reluctance to kill the arms sale – because of
its benefits to the US economy and US jobs. Furthermore, he expressed his
desire that this windfall not go to other countries, such as Russia or China.
His statements, or at least, the part about the arms sale, are dismaying and,
from what I know, incorrect.

Let’s look first at the ‘facts.’ He claims a $110
billion sale; in fact, the White House previously announced this $100 billion
potential sale, but without going into any details. Based on current reporting
and the history of US-Saudi arms deals, I find the $110 billion figure hard to swallow.
In 2017, Saudi Arabia bought $10 billion in arms, $6 billion of that from the
U.S., the rest from mostly European countries. A tenfold increase in purchases
seems, on the surface, to be incredible, and, frankly, unbelievable. News
reports indicate that State Department records show a planned purchase of $4
billion, which is more realistic. As to Trump’s claims that the Saudis will, if
the U.S. sale doesn’t go through, purchase from Russia or China, also don’t
pass the smell test. The Saudi military uses mostly U.S. equipment. It’s
doubtful that either the Chinese or the Russians could provide material or
equipment that would be compatible with the current Saudi force structure, and
it would take several years for Saudi Arabia to reconfigure their force to
integrate Chinese or Russian arms. My conclusion is, what we have here is
another case of the ‘alternative facts’ that seem to come out of this White
House with alarming frequency.

One other thing that dismays me is the reporting that
the U.S. intelligence community had information that the Saudis were planning
to lure Khasoggi back to Saudi Arabia so they could arrest him. Why, one might
ask, was he not warned of this danger?

According to Trump, he’s not an American, the incident
didn’t happen on American soil, so, it’s not our ‘problem.’

Horse feathers! Intelligence Community Directive 191,
I understand, is an executive branch directive that requires the IC to warn any
individual, specifically non-US individuals, when there is a threat to them in
a foreign country. Even if such a directive did not exist, I would think a
sense of ‘right’ would compel the government to find a way, without
compromising sources and methods, to alert someone that a foreign agency has
him or her in its sights.

One can only wonder at this point; if Khasoggi had
been a legal permanent resident working for Fox, Breitbart, or one of the other
right-wing media concerns, if we would be hearing the same tired old song.

The world will be watching us and judging what we do
in this terrible situation. Will we continue to put money over morals? If we
do, all I can say is – SHAME!!

Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Whenever
there is a change in leadership in an organization, whether it’s a country or a
country club, there will be change. And change is, by its very nature,
disruptive. With every change of administration in Washington, government
workers must accommodate the inevitable changes., sometimes minor, sometimes
very substantive. Career personnel are committed to carrying out the policies
of the elected leadership, but sometimes that job is made difficult by the
pace, volume, and nature of the changes that a new administration brings.
During my 50 years of military and civilian government service, under every
administration from JFK to Barack Obama, I have lost track of the number of
times I’ve had to make significant changes in how I carried out my duties.

Everyone,
including the Foreign Service, faces changes in the way we do business when the
foreign policy leadership changes. As frustrating as it can be, it is what it
is.

.

Disruption means
change: Sometimes Cosmetic, Sometimes Cataclysmic

During
my thirty years as a Foreign Service Officer, in positions from junior consular
officer to ambassador, I observed and experienced the turbulence that came with
five presidential administrations, and since my retirement in 2012, I’ve
followed with interest the changes underway with the current administration.
Sometimes the changes were merely cosmetic, consisting of relabeling programs
that were longstanding, but, at other times, the changes were dramatic.

The
Reagan Administration practiced a form of ‘out-of-the-box’ disruptive
diplomacy, but Reagan had a clear goal and even though he sometimes used
militant rhetoric, was willing to change when the situation called for change.
In addition, he had an excellent foreign policy inner circle.

George
H. W. Bush entered office in 1989, a time of seismic changes in the global
situation, with the USSR breaking up and the Cold War ending, ushering in what
he called the ‘new world order.’ Bush, however, was not given to militant
rhetoric or grand gestures, preferring instead a deliberate, cautious approach.
While he was cautious with his rhetoric, he did cause some disruption because
of his tendency to have direct contact with foreign leaders often leaving the
diplomatic corps to learn things from the foreign press...

Bill
Clinton took office in 1993, and his foreign policy direction was to rely on
regional and international organizations. Much of the disruption during his two
terms came from his conflict with congress over war powers, and the
administration’s failure to act in response to the genocide in Rwanda, which,
after he left office, he acknowledged was a failure on his part. Establishment
of relations with Vietnam was perhaps the high point in his tenure, and
expanded opportunities for many Foreign Service Officers who were Southeast
Asian specialists.

When
George W. Bush assumed the presidency in 2001, his foreign policy focused on
stronger relations with Latin America, Mexico in particular, and a reduction in
US nation-building efforts. One of his earlier moves, withdrawal from the Kyoto
Protocols, caused a brief diplomatic scramble as our people abroad had to
explain our position to host nations. Objections to the International Criminal
Courts, and the possibility of it being used to target Americans for propaganda
purposes, with threats of reduced assistance to countries who did not support
our position created problems for diplomats who had to approach host countries
what amounted to a ‘take-it-or-leave-it bullying’ offer.

In
2009, the administration of Barack Obama outlined a foreign policy based on
cooperation with allies, a global coalition of partnerships to address global
issues, such as the Paris Agreement on the Environment, and an emphasis on soft
power instead of military solutions to problems. He did not immediately
repudiate past policies, including some that many of our allies disagreed with,
and 805 of the previous administration’s politically appointed ambassadors were
retained for varying periods of time, ensuring continuity in our relations with
their host countries.

And,
that brings us to the present administration of Donald J. Trump, which took
office in January 2017. From day one, and even during the campaign in 2016, we
have seen a Heisenberg Principle level of uncertainty and disruption in US
foreign policy, with policy pronouncements often announced via early-morning
Twitter posts, without the benefit of interagency coordination. These actions
have caused significant shifts in long-standing policies, forcing diplomats on
the ground to scramble to explain their meaning to our allies

The Short- and
Long-term impacts

Since
January 2017, there has been an exodus of experienced senior career FSOs from
the State Department, which exacerbates existing problems, particular relating
to providing career guidance to new hires. In the short term, these vacancies
have to be filled with often inexperienced mid-level people, who are not
lacking in intellect or will, but who don’t have the wealth of experience and
depth of contacts needed. This is further complicated by the lack of a clear
policy. While ‘Make America Great Again,’ is an interesting slogan—albeit
bringing to mind the discredited ‘America First’ policy of the pre-World War II
years—it is not a policy.

The
potential long-term impact is even more distressing.

Continued
efforts to reduce the State Department budget, which is barely sufficient at
the best of times, impairs the ability to staff our missions abroad. The
administration often seems unaware of the many services our diplomats offer Americans
that have nothing to do with politics. Consular services are not just
immigration. Consular officers help American travelers and expatriates in ways
that seldom get mentioned in the media, from replacing lost passports to
issuing birth and death certificates. Foreign
Commercial Service Officers and their State Department economic officer
colleagues assist American businesses in entering foreign markets,
understanding foreign commercial environments, and settling business disputes.
If we reduce this American presence abroad, we eventually reduce our ability to
level the playing field for American business abroad, and we leave Americans
traveling or living abroad without an essential lifeline.

Another
long-term impact of the administration’s actions that no one seems to be
considering is this: who will implement this administration’s policy
abroad—assuming it can eventually develop a coherent policy. It might be barely
possible, but hardly effective, for one person to run a big company, but it’s notpossible for one person to run a country. Domestic issues alone are
beyond the scope of a single individual’s ability, and when it comes to the
myriad of activities that go into the foreign affairs mix, it’s a fools’ errand
to even contemplate going it alone.

How Can the
Foreign Service Survive?

The
Foreign Service currently faces an existential threat. Are we prepared to
accept this new reality, and more importantly, do something about it? It’s not
just the continued survival of the Foreign Service as a viable institution
that’s important either. We must also consider the continued ability to provide
essential services to Americans abroad, and to serve as the eyes, ears, and
voice of the United States in places around the globe.

Working
with the congress and other stakeholders, we need to take action to prepare our
FSOs and Foreign Service Specialists, not only to survive for the next two
years, but to prosper. We must prepare junior- and mid-level officers and
specialists to perform effectively at more senior levels much earlier in their
careers. This requires more than traditional tradecraft training, It requires a
sustained program of career education that begins on day one of an officer or
specialist’s employment.

This
does not mean that we should junk current programs—at least, not all of
them—but we should add programs that are designed to instill and reinforce the
core values and skills that people require to be effective diplomats..

Courses
in mentoring, counseling, ethical decision making, leadership, and planning
should be mandatory for all personal at all grades. The A-100 course, for
instance, should include basic instruction on these subjects, as should the
senior leadership courses and the Ambassadorial and DCM/Principal Officer
Seminars.

Mentoring
and counseling are important for developing and motivating subordinates, and
it’s no longer possible to rely on the apprentice system of the past; there
simply will not be enough senior, experienced people to support it.

Current
ethics training is necessary, but in today’s complex ethical environment, not
sufficient. Our people need to be able to act and make decisions consistent
with core American values while preserving their own personal moral values. Additional
education is required to enable them to operate effectively in the gray area of
moral uncertainty and value conflict, and they must have options beyond surrender
integrity or resign.

FSI
provides leadership training which is fairly effective. I say effective, but, I
think there should be more participation by experienced practitioners. Mandatory
leadership training should also be required for all tenured FSOs and all
specialists who wish to compete for leadership positions.

Benjamin
Franklin, one of America’s first diplomats, said, ‘If you fail to plan, you
plan to fail.” At the same time, there’s an old military saying ‘no plan
survives first contact with the enemy.’ I’m not sure who said it first, but
it’s true. Every event, every crisis is unique, and has to be dealt with in a
unique way. So, what’s the good of a plan? Planning helps to focus people on
the organization’s goals and puts everyone at the same starting point, so that
in a crisis, efforts to deal with it are coordinated and coherent. Planning
disciplines the mind, so that, in a crisis, with a short planning time frame,
people can identify the problem, marshal needed resources, and deal with the
problem in a coherent and timely manner. Planning requires one to identify the
problem or goal, assess different courses of action, determine logistic and
administrative requirements and drawbacks, and make decisions. This
disciplining of the thought process, when a common part of the organization
experience, helps in crises. While the planning time frame is much narrower
when the balloon goes up, it still applies. Identify the crisis, determine the
desired end state, marshal required resources, and execute.

These
modest recommendations would, I believe, address many of our short- and
long-term issues. The Foreign Service faces hard times, and at the end of the
next two years will be a severely weakened institution that will have to be
rebuilt. We shouldn’t, however, seek to rebuild it exactly as it was. We should
strive to build a new and better Foreign Service. One that is resilient, and
ready for any mission, anywhere. This we owe the American people.